Format: Self-paced Course Developed by: LibraryU, a program of the Illinois State Library and the regional library systems Length: 1 hour

Patrons are overwhelmed by the hundreds of new titles every year added to the thousands already on the shelves. Browsing the shelves is a frustrating exercise. Readers' advisory services provides patrons with the help they need to find books they will enjoy, and helps the library retain active patrons. This introduction to public library readers' advisory services to adults includes the readers' advisory interview, marketing readers' advisory services, promoting fiction, and finding aids. In this course you will learn how to identify what it is in genre fiction that appeals to a reader, how best to get them to articulate that appeal, what books to suggest to the reader, and how to promote the different kinds of genre fiction in a public library. A chapter titled "Difficult Aspects of a Readers' Advisory Interview" provides tricks of the trade for keeping up with the rapidly changing world of genre fiction. This course provides an excellent opportunity for increasing skills in this vital area of public library service.

As libraries evolve and adapt to changing circumstances, it is crucial to our continued community relevance that we retain and serve our core constituency of readers. Readers' advisory specialists from The Seattle Public Library will expand on the basic premises and practices of reader’s advisory, sharing how to apply these practices across new platforms and technologies, enlist social media and catalogs to serve readers, and use form-based and virtual readers' advisory. Learn expert techniques for using the latest generation of advisory resources and other ways to better serve readers in libraries large and small.

For the last 15 years, public and high school libraries have been exploring the under-reviewed and small press produced genre of street lit. It is most often passed hand to hand or through publishing parties held by the authors, and often appeals to readers with interests outside the majority culture. With increasing amounts of professional discussions now available on the strengths and challenges street lit collections can offer your library's users, it's time to look at the appeal that holds for readers.

Street lit is not without its controversies. Learning why and how some libraries have decided to include it in their collections will help your library decide whether it's feasible and appropriate for your community. Knowing how your community may react to its inclusion in your library will increase your value as the community's readers' advisor and/or fiction collection developer.